


Fictober 2020: A History

by AmnesiaticRoses



Series: Fictober 2020 Fills [3]
Category: Dr. STONE (Anime), Dr. STONE (Manga)
Genre: Flashbacks, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-10-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:27:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27191722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AmnesiaticRoses/pseuds/AmnesiaticRoses
Summary: Prompt 5: “Unacceptable, try again.” -- Kinro hated training with Magma.
Series: Fictober 2020 Fills [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1984177
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Fictober 2020: A History

**Author's Note:**

> This is un-beta-ed, largely unedited and hastily written, since I'm trying to keep to writing about one a day. So, apologies if there are issues! Comments and critique welcome, as always.

Kinro dodges the first thrust. The second. Pivots. Attacks.

Misses.

“Too shallow!” Kohaku’s voice conveys as much irritation and disappointment as her weapon, as she closes in and strikes under his left arm, knocking him a step to the left. He resists the urge to react, and the two step apart instead. “I can’t say it any other way. You need to attack all the way through!”

The sun had dropped below the trees about ten minutes ago, and probably they should be eating dinner (he knows Ginro has already hightailed it back to the village to get his meal), but Kohaku hasn’t called an end, so he’s not going to ask for one. She’s taking the time to train him. He’s going to do everything she asks as part of that.

“Magma’ll be going for blood,” she says as she paces across their little sparring arena, twirling one of her padded weapons with a careless elegance that makes it almost look like a dance. “You can’t do this halfway.”

“I’m not,” he says, with only a small twinge of uneasiness. Ginro had urged him to tell Chrome and Senku about his vision problems, and on some level not doing so does indeed feel like doing things halfway. But at the same time … what were they going to do about it? It would just be making an excuses. Like he was telling them he expected to lose.

_ No excuses in war. _

He can’t make excuses, and he can’t lose. Kohaku is training him because she wants to save Ruri, and he wants to as well -- not for her own sake alone, or for Kohaku’s, but because Magma cannot win again. Because if he were to get the village under his thumb … if he did that…

“Pay attention.”

Kohaku’s not angry -- not even chiding him really. More just calling him back to the moment, to  _ this  _ opponent and  _ this  _ fight. “Yes,” he says, resuming his ready stance. They go again. This time he feels he’s nearly got her, but she dances back to where her form becomes indistinct, where the difference between one step and the next gets lost, and he misses to the right. She lands lightly on his weapon -- how can someone so strong be so relatively light? -- and frowns down at him.

“You can’t beat him like this,” she says, hopping down and patting him on the shoulder before walking away, back toward the village. 

She leans on the word “him” as though it were a prophecy. It’s the first time Kinro knows for sure that Kohaku knows.

* * *

_ “It is a great honor to defend the village. Safety is one of the building blocks upon which prosperity is built.” _

_ Kinro, seven years old today, nods enthusiastically. It’s almost word for word the thing his father told him as he was sent off to train. His father had said it like he believed it, and old Topaz said it like he was just getting it over with, but Kinro believes it both times. The monsters from the hundred stories could all be out there. He imagines them sometimes, seeing their figures painted in the smoke of a campfire or the clouds overhead. Monsters that could sneak in and hurt his family and friends. _

_ To learn to stand against such creatures was indeed the best thing one could do. _

_ He does have his doubts though. Stories of Topaz’s history as a fighter are sometimes told around the fire, and everyone raises toasts to him on those evenings, but the man before him doesn’t look like a warrior. He is old, shrunken into his clothing, with eyes that squint at the world. Kinro rarely sees him anymore. His mother says Topaz has been ill, and has been resting to regain his strength, but Kinro thinks if that’s the case, the man needs to rest for a season. When he stands, he leans on his cane and still, can’t hide the tremors in his legs.  _

_ Still, his father said he would come here, to this man, to learn to be brave and fight. So he was going to do just that.  _

_ “We will begin working today, to help you become the honorable fighter your village needs you to be.” Topaz isn’t looking at Kinro, exactly. His eyes turn in the right general direction, but he doesn’t seem to be seeing. “It will be difficult, but if you obey orders, you will do your village proud.” _

_ “Thank you for teaching me,” Kinro says, as he was instructed before leaving home. Then he waits in silence for the instruction to begin. The waiting makes him feel a little bit sick, and the situation gets worse the longer he stands here wondering just what will happen. He has used sticks and played at fighting with his brother and other village children, imitating the village chief. But the real thing is probably harder. What if he’s terrible? What if he’s weak? What if he goes home to his parents’ disappointed faces -- this child of ours cannot help protect anyone. _

_ “We will start with the basics,” Topaz says, raising his cane with one hand. For a moment, Kinro thinks he intends to fight using that cane as a weapon, before realizing that he is pointing, only pointing. “And I have requested the aid of a powerful pupil. He will be helping me to train the youth of the village. Please convey your thanks to him as well.” _

_ Kinro turns to see who the man meant, and there stands one of the older boys, Magma, with a padded stick over one shoulder and a grin on his face. _

* * *

“You just need to try to strike through your opponent,” Chrome says as he carefully grinds some stone or another into dust at Senku’s instruction. “Don’t just stop when you think you’ve hit, right?”

Kinro makes a noncommittal noise from where he sits a few feet away, sharpening his spear -- his real spear, not the weapon for the upcoming Village Games. He appreciates that Chrome is trying to be helpful, but in a lot of ways, he may be the last person Kinro wants advice from.

Chrome isn’t much of a fighter, but not having the physical skill to do something doesn’t necessarily mean your observations aren’t sharp. In this case, he’s not saying anything Kinro hasn’t already tried, but he means well. 

That isn’t the problem.

Even Kinro knows that the younger man wants badly to be the tournament victor, not for the power or glory that accompanied it, but simply because he wants to protect someone he cares about. Kinro gets that. He’s built his life to this point around protecting people. He is willing to give his life for it. He can’t imagine what would happen if his ability to do so were diminished to the point where it seemed an unattainable dream.

He feels like the advice Chrome gives him is baring something deep and secret in the sorc… the scientist, and he doesn’t want to observe that. Doesn’t want to be responsible for knowing it.

“How close are you getting?” he asks instead.

And Chrome explains. He tries to keep it in terms a non-scientist can understand, but sometimes his excitement gets the better of him and he leaps from the sphere of things Kinro knows and understands and into a world of words that sound like nonsense. But then he catches himself. Reins it back. Back to the clearer concepts. 

Senku runs hot and cold, either too complicated from the get go or simplifying things to their broad concepts. Chrome, maybe because they’ve known one another so long, makes an attempt to explain the things they’re doing so Kinro understands. He appreciates it. And tonight, he wants those explanations. The intensity of the explanation carries how intensely Chrome needs them to win, so they can save Ruri.

Kinro decides to focus on that.

* * *

“ _ Are you even trying?” _

Yes _ , Kinro wants to shout.  _ I’m trying. You’re the one who’s not!

_ But he holds his silence and picks himself up out of the dirt. One of his teeth cut into his lip on that last one. He barely feels it. He’s sure it hurts, but after two weeks of training, everything hurts. This is just one more.  _

_ “Being able to set a solid base is the most important thing to know about fighting,” Magma chides, and in someone else’s mouth this might sound like honest instruction. “Your blocks will be weak. Your attacks won’t hurt. Try again.” _

_ So Kinro sets his feet as Magma had shown him that first day, when Topaz listlessly watched them both. But most days since, Topaz has only watched briefly before wandering off to “take care of some things,” or just to nap.  _

_ Kinro assumed others would also be training, but it is mostly just the two of them. Magma sometimes speaks contemptuously about Titan, about how he is weak, how he has given up on training and joined his father felling trees. Kinro has watched Titan at work and doesn’t think he looks weak at all. But Magma seems sure, and Titan’s not here, so Kinro guesses he is missing something.  _

_ Carbo comes by sometimes to spar with Magma, but it seems to be out of obligation. The matches are always short. Kinro thinks Carbo could probably do better than he does -- he’s much quicker when he’s out fishing on the water than he is in matches with Magma. But it would be wrong to question his elders, even if they’re not much elder, so he keeps quiet. At least when Magma trains with Carbo, he’s not training with Kinro. _

_ But there is no Carbo today, just Kinro who sets his feet as he was shown and raises his practice spear to block, and Magma, who swings with everything he has, and the end result is Kinro in the dirt again. _

_ “What is going on here?” _

_ Topaz’s voice cuts through the shady, wooded area where the two are practicing. He has woken from his nap it seems. And for a moment, Kinro thinks he must have seen that, he must know that Magma isn’t teaching him how to do anything. As he scrambles to his feet in front of the teacher, Magma speaks first. _

_ “I am doing my best, Master Topaz.” Kinro can hear the edge of mockery in Magma’s voice. “But he refuses to even try to follow my instructions. A breeze could knock him over.” _

What? _ Kinro starts to defend himself, to speak up for himself, but Topaz speaks before he has a chance. _

_ “Unacceptable! Try again.” _

_ “Master-” _

_ “You can make statements and requests once I see you trying and not wasting people’s time,” Topaz says firmly, a little angrily. And just like that, there’s nothing Kinro can do. So he sets his feet as he was shown, and waits for the attack. _

_ This one and the next few don’t come anywhere near as hard and fast. The first one knocks him to one knee, but it’s barely a tumble. And he thinks he can understand now what they were talking about with a strong base. It’s not something he could explain, but he can feel it -- the way the first of the attack carries down through his arms and torso and into his legs, and how if we were not braced, it would have sent him sprawling. The next time, he keeps his feet. And the next. And the next. _

_ “So you can do it,” Topaz says after the fifth. “Don’t think you can be lazy when I am not here, child. You will only hurt yourself.” _

_ He’s not really looking. Magma is grinning. So Kinro takes the only dutiful path. _

_ “Yes sir.” _

* * *

“We have two days.” Kohaku isn’t even breaking a sweat, while Kinro has been left panting by the day’s relentless training. “You have to break this habit. You are running out of time.”

She isn’t wrong, but without some idea on how to do it, they are just words. And he has no idea how to do it. Willpower and determination won’t be enough.

On the bright side, he does think intensive training with her had helped. They’re actually surprisingly evenly matched in a lot of ways. She is just so _fast_ , and he can't keep up -- but he is getting slightly closer. And most of the fighters in the games would look slow in comparison. Especially Magma -- he’s always moved like a bear, ponderous but powerful, terrifyingly powerful. 

Kohaku backs off and glances around. He knows without asking that she is looking for his brother, who has shirked training yet again. He always spends at least some time with the two of them, but usually no more than half of the overall training they do. Sometimes Senku finds him and threatens him with work until he returns. Sometimes he slinks away to one of the hiding places that only he knows to “practice by himself.” Kinro doesn't know if he just already thinks he's ready, despite evidence to the contrary, or if he’s already mentally abdicated his role as a fighter, expecting Kohaku and Kinro to do the real fighting.

“Sorry about Ginro,” he says as she scans the treeline. 

“His training is not your responsibility,” she replies firmly.

He grunts in answer. Because of course Ginro’s training, his lack of discipline, is because his older brother has not carefully instilled it in him. He has been coddled, as much as people in this village can be. Protected.

Kohaku looks around once more anyway, just in case, then asks over her shoulder, “are you ready if you face him?”

He wonders if her constant travels into the forest when she was younger had led her to see some of the training he’d undergone. She’s never mentioned it, if so. But alone out of everyone, she seems to get that he is both hoping for and dreading a fight against Magma. That it is more than just Magma being the biggest obstacle. That it is personal, for him.

“Are you?” she asks again, curious.

“I will have to be,” is his only answer.

* * *

_ Many members of the village visit Topaz occasionally, making sure he has food and his home is warm and that he has good clothing. But lately there has been someone with him around the clock. Kinro is drifting off to sleep one night when someone comes and asks his mother to come watch over the old man. She goes without argument. By the time he wakes in the morning, she is back. Curious, Kinro asks why she went to the trainer’s home. _

_ “Topaz is a strong man,” his mother says, taking one of his hands in both of hers. She looks tired, her blond hair unkempt from being out for most of the night. “But he is very tired. Our village will soon have to say goodbye to him, and we do not wish to leave him by himself until that time comes. It would be respectful for you to visit him today. To thank him and to say goodbye.” _

_ Frankly, Kinro doesn’t want to. He has been given very little by Topaz. The man has not attended training in months, and even before that, he rarely taught anything -- just barking out a few orders when he was able to make it to a session. Kinro felt sure he couldn’t see enough to actually tell whether or not he was doing things right. _

_ So Kinro doesn’t hate Topaz. He just isn’t grateful to him. The man had clearly once been spry and powerful and an important protector of the village, but he had kept the job of training the village children and then abdicated it to the last fighter he had trained, who used it as a weapon. _

_ It isn’t that Kinro hasn’t learned anything from training with Magma in the last year and a half. He has. It is just mostly in spite of Magma, not because of him. He’s learned to use his quickness as a weapon. He’s learned to angle his spear to deflect some of the power in the older boy’s attacks, to lessen some of the brute strength advantage. He’s learned when to move and when to stand firm. It is an imperfect fighting style born not of training but of experience and pain.  _

_ And he’s learned that Magma likes to use training as a way to bully people into submission. To remove them as a threat to whatever he might want to do. To add them to his group, or to keep them out of fighting all together.  _

_ Kinro has decided he will do neither. Even if he pays for that every time they train. _

_ “Can you come with me?” he asks.  _

_ And she smiles, saying, “Of course. Would you like to go now?” When he nods, she lets his father know they’re going, then takes his hand and they leave the house. _

_ “We should see about your brother joining you,” she adds as they cross the village, before stifling a yawn.  _

_ “But he doesn’t know Master Topaz,” Kinro says. He also isn’t sure mischievous Ginro would be the best person to bring to a dying man’s bedside. _

_ “Mmm. No. For training. With Magma now, I guess?” _

_ Kinro stops abruptly enough that his hand pulls from his mother’s. She stops too. Turns. “Kinro?” _

_ “Magma is taking over training?” _

_ She walks back over to him and crouches down. He’s getting taller, and this actually makes her a little bit shorter than he. He’s not sure if she’s just tired and doesn’t want to stand, or if she just wants to look him in the eye as she asks, “Is something wrong?” _

_ He looks into her face. She’s asking. He can tell her. He can let her know. But… if he tells her, she’ll make him stop training with Magma. May make him stop training to be a guard, a protector. And Magma hasn’t been able to batter that desire out of him.  _

_ “Will Magma accept Ginro as a student?” he asks. It’s a legitimate question, if not his real worry. He can deal with what Magma throws at him, but his brother is energetic and outgoing and a bit of a crybaby. And Magma will either break him, or else he’ll chase Ginro off, and he'll never get a chance to learn if he’s any good at fighting.  _

_ His mother considers the question for a long few seconds. “I suppose we’ll have to see,” she says. “But you can’t worry about that. You just worry about yourself.” _

_ That statement honestly doesn’t make sense to him. Ginro is his little brother. He’s been helping watch over him for years. And nothing in him will let his brother face Magma’s training. _

_ “I could train him,” Kinro says, anxiety pitching his voice up. _

_ His mother smiles fondly. But then the smile fades as she studies his face. She leans in a little closer. “You’re serious about this, huh?” she asks. He nods emphatically. “Is there something wrong with training with Magma? You can tell me.” _

_ He doesn’t say yes. But he doesn’t say no either. And after a little while, she takes his hand and they go say goodbye to Topaz, who looks almost unreal in his bed, still and pale. He’s gone by that evening. _

_ The next two days, his parents speak to the parents of some of the other older children in the village. And they ask him, with forced casualness, if he still wants to keep training with Magma. And he says yes, and no more is said of it. But Ginro stays home, being trained by a combination of his brother and his father.  _

* * *

“You can’t possibly go along with this, Kohaku! Match fixing … it would be a disgrace to the entire bout!” 

But even as he says it, he knows the answer. What she wants is to save her sister. If that means getting free wins so she can save her strength, so be it. And he doesn't agree with her, but he gets it. He totally gets it. And it makes him feel a little guilty.

Because everyone else is united in their reasons to fight. And sure, he shares that reason with them. He wants to protect Ruri, for her own sake and Kohaku’s and Chrome’s. 

But he has another reason too.

* * *

_ When Kinro is eleven, training starts to happen less regularly. By the time he’s 13, Magma decides training him is “not worth his time” and ends it. Kinro wonders, for a long time after, why exactly that happened.  _

_ Magma may be telling the truth. After all, more and more often, their training ends in stalemates. Magma can still put him down with one blow if it’s a clean one. But landing a clean blow is becoming harder and harder for his teacher to manage. He sees the frustration building. It may certainly not be worth it. _

_ But Kinro never stops wondering if it’s something else.  _

* * *

Magma clearly hoped his offer --  _ lick my boot and join my side rather than fight me _ \-- would be tempting. The history between them, mostly hidden from everyone else in the village, weighed in those words and the taunts that followed. 

Kinro hadn’t backed down before. He wasn’t going to do so this time either. Not with everything on the line. And he couldn’t help but notice that Magma was doing everything to put him off his game. 

“I’m no longer the fighter you know,” He found himself saying in the face of Magma’s taunts. And as he said it, he realized it was true. Magma was still bigger, but no longer nearly as much so. And he was slow. And he wanted to win only for himself.

And he couldn’t scare Kinro. Not anymore. 


End file.
